There are nights when I watch the Nashville Predators and I honestly think to myself, "If they even score one goal then I'll be surprised." Last night was one of those games.
The Predators visited a struggling Anaheim team, and made them look like world beaters in a 4-0 loss. Jonas Hiller gets the shutout with 40 saves. Now, on the one hand, 40 shots on goal is a very positive sign for an offense that struggles as much as Nashville does. However, as I have discussed before it's about the quality of the shots. All too often on bang-bang plays a missed shot occurred forcing Hiller to save nothing. Maybe most frustrating would be when an odd man rush occurs, such as a 2 on 1 with Sullivan and Smithson, and then the player that shoots the puck (in this case Sully) fails to put the puck on net as well. Shots on goal are a very good thing, but the quality of the shot and turning it into an actual scoring chance is a different story.
There were some disturbing trends from this game. For one, Hiller was giving up huge rebounds all night. Somehow he got away with this routinely. This team was averaging the fewest penalties per game in the league. Last night was undisciplined and it cost them the first goal of the game. 6 minor penalties by 6 different players (and yes I'm including TEAM). The too many men on the ice penalty always makes me shake my head. This is one of the most avoidable penalties out there. That said, I do give credit to the Preds PK unit for stopping 5 of the 6 powerplays given up.
Considering the Preds put up 40 shots on goal, who would you think was the players peppering the net? Well, you may be a bit surprised. Leading the way was Patric Hornqvist with 10 SOG. Next we have a five-way tie for players with 4 SOG: Hamhuis, Thuresson, Santorelli, Tootoo, and Franson. That alone should make you look twice. So what happened with the few top 6 forwards the Preds have healthy? Legwand finished the game -2, had 0 shots on goal, and in fact never attempted a shot. The captain Jason Arnott was returning from his injury. He was -1, had 2 shots on goal, 2 attempts blocked, and 3 missed shots. Steve Sullivan was -1, had 0 shots on goal, had 1 attempt blocked, and missed the net on 2 shots. One other thing about Sully, 3 giveaways in this game. This is becoming an alarming trend with Sullivan. He now leads the team with 17 giveaways this season AND is 14th in the NHL for most giveaways. WIth Dumont and Erat out (although Erat wouldn't add much anyways thus far), it certainly showed that the veteran top 6 forwards looked a little lost tonight. I would take this as a positive/negative situation. It's not good when your top players aren't putting enough pucks on net, BUT, it is encouraging to see so many of the younger players putting forth the effort in the vets stead.
In the end, it's the 4th shutout of the Preds this season. As John Glennon noted in his blog, last season the Preds were shutout just 5 times the entire year. All of this prompted me to tweet the following last night,
"Dear Mr. Poile, You've been shutout in 28% of your 14 gms & your PP is near 10%. You need to acquire offense, yesterday."
The teams special teams units are now at 11.3% for the man advantage (29th in the NHL) and the PK is now at 77.4% (23rd in the NHL). There is a glaring weakness, and with Weber out, last night the man advantage looked quite lost. 5 opportunities with the extra man and they managed 5 shots on goal during that time. Even with Arnott moving to the point, the loss of Weber is felt heavily in his first game out.
So the struggling Ducks who had lost 7 of their last 9 games before last night come away with a resounding win. The road games don't get any easier either. Tomorrow afternoon at 3 pm CST the Preds will play what has turned out to be a very good L.A. Kings team. The Kings are 2nd in the Pacific with a 10-4-2 record, and they snapped the Penguins road winning streak just last night. Maybe the most interesting stat I quickly saw about them is they have double the amount of goals the Preds have scored this year: 56 to the Preds 28. Maybe it will be a good thing that nobody here in Tennessee will be able to see the game. That's right, it's one of those rare games where NEITHER team has TV coverage. I guess we will all be depending on Rachel over at What The Puck for an in-person review.
Till the next time, take care everyone.
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